The Doctor Is In

How Doctor Who Finally Became Great Again

Your mileage may vary when it comes to the past few seasons of Doctor Who. But there were many who were worried—especially after last year—that the long-running show had lost its way. Ratings are down both in the U.S. and the U.K. because, presumably, last year’s especially rocky transition between young, exuberant Matt Smith, to older, grumpy Peter Capaldi didn’t sit well. But leaving the classic sci-fi series now would be a mistake because in its 9th (or, technically, 35th) season, Doctor Who has finally gotten great again. Here’s how.

A Doctor We Can Love Again: When Capaldi’s Doctor entered this season riding a tank and wailing on a guitar, audiences knew the Time Lord had undergone a major overhaul. The Doctor we met last season was an uptight, cynical misanthrope. And if there’s one thing that doesn’t work, it’s an alien hero that travels the galaxy saving humanity (and other races) because he hates other people. You have to applaud creator Steven Moffat and star Capaldi—who both insisted last year that they liked how unlikable the Doctor was—for throwing out what wasn’t working and giving us a kindler, gentler, more enjoyable leading man.

The personality changes have rippled all the way out to the costuming. Gone are last season’s severe dark trousers and crisp, white dress shirts. (The Doctor himself took a crack at his look last year saying he was “hoping for minimalism, but I think I came up with magician.”) Capadli still rocks that beautifully scarlet-lined coat, but now he pairs it with wilder hair, T-shirts, hoodies, and, when we’re lucky, gloriously loud plaid pants.

All of this would smack of your dad trying his damnedest to look hip if Peter Capaldi himself weren’t so inherently, effortlessly cool. The biggest change to the Doctor’s look is that his sonic device (which was once a wand-like screwdriver) is now a pair of sunglasses he occasionally wears inside, outside, in space, underwater, and, oh yes, at night. The practicality of the sunglasses are a little hit and miss, but the cool factor is now hard-coded into the character.

You might say clothes don’t make the man (legions of Doctor Who cosplayers would disagree with you, but, oh well), so it’s important to look at how the Doctor’s personality has changed. The last three iterations of the Doctor—played by Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Smith—loved the creatures they roamed the galaxy defending. Things were exuberantly “brilliant!,” “beautiful!,” and “absolutely fantastic!” It didn’t work at all last year to have a Doctor who lacked enthusiasm and whose first instinct is to dislike his fellow man/alien.

When asked about his dour approach to the role earlier this year, Capaldi joked, “Life is shit. Business as usual. That’s Scottish philosophy.” But current show-runner Steven Moffat transformed both Doctor Who and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes into misanthropic assholes. That might work for the quirky genius of Baker Street, but it doesn’t at all fly with the Time Lord. Doctor Who is, after all, a kids show. But already this year we’ve seen the return of the Doctor’s curiosity, love, and joy. (He’s still sassy, though. Just ask any of those vikings he snarkily nicknamed last week.) He’s even embraced hugging again.

The Return to an Old Structure: Some of Doctor Who’s strongest episodes in recent years were two-parters. Eccleston had “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances,” Tennant had “Human Nature”/“The Family Of Blood” and “Silence in the Library”/“Forest of the Dead,” and Smith had the marginally less successful “The Time of Angels”/“Flesh and Stone.” With the exception of last year’s season finale, Doctor Who hasn’t had regular two-parters since 2011’s “The Rebel Flesh”/“The Almost People.” But they are back this year with a vengeance. Of the 12 episodes in this season of Doctor Who, a whopping 10 are two-parters, and that structure lends itself beautifully to the show for several reasons.

There’s been a shift, this season, away from the overarching mythology that gave the previous seasons their structure, so you’re left with several stand-alone adventures. In order to craft a successful Who stand-alone, the writers need to establish the rules of a new environment, introduce a threat to that environment, and have the Doctor either save the day without complication or save the day with devastating consequences.

That’s an awful lot to cram into an hour, and sometimes it works. Current show-runner Steven Moffat penned two of the all-time belter stand-alone episodes of Doctor Who: “The Girl in the Fireplace” and “Blink.” But a two-parter really allows the audience time to fall in love with the people the Doctor is helping. This is why we care so much about the fate of the crew in Season 2’s “The Impossible Planet”/“The Satan Pit” and why we care about the crew this season in “Under the Lake”/“Before the Flood.” It’s how we can get something like the steady drumbeat tormenting Derek Jacobi’s Season 3 character in “Utopia” pay off in spades with the menacing rat-a-tat of John Simms’s Master in parts two and three. (Yup, Who even had a three-parter once.) The non-companion side characters have always been a very important element of Doctor Who, especially when played by the likes of pre-America fame Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, James Corden, and, hey, Peter Capaldi.

But it’s the consequences that really land when you have a Doctor Who two-parter. This week’s episode, “The Woman Who Lived,” is all about the fallout from the Doctor’s well-meaning decision to rescue Maisie Williams’s Viking maiden from death at the end of last week’s episode. (The very episode titles “The Girl Who Died”/“The Woman Who Lived” promise consequences.) The Clara-less episode will focus on the Doctor confronting the curse of immortality and how the miseries of his own life weigh heavily on this young girl. That’s not something you can dash off in 45 minutes.

A Little Less Mythology:Doctor Who is certainly capable of paying off mythology in a brilliant way. The early Rose/Bad Wolf plot is a perfect example. But in the Moffat era, the mythology oftentimes overwhelmed the series and the female companions were frequently reduced to riddles the Doctor had to solve. Who is Amy Pond a.k.a. The Girl Who Waited? Who is River Song a.k.a. The Doctor’s Wife? How is Clara Oswald a.k.a. The Impossible Girl? And what, in heavens, is Missy? This season, mercifully, has none of that. There have, however, been some mythological arcs tying the Doctor to the show’s legacy. Davros, the Doctor’s old arch enemy, showed up in the premiere. And in last week’s episode we saw one of the cleverer payoffs in the show’s history.

Before he was the Doctor, Capaldi appeared as a Roman patriarch in the 2008 episode “The Fires of Pompeii.” And while this isn’t the first time Doctor Who has recycled an actor (future Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan, for example, also appeared as a different character in that same episode), this is the first time they’ve bothered to explain why. “Why this face?” Capaldi’s Doctor wondered last year before finally reaching a conclusion last week. In the 2008 episode, as Pompeii collapsed, the 10th Doctor’s companion, Donna (Catherine Tate), begged him to go back to the crumbling city and save someone . . . anyone. That someone was Capaldi (and his family), and so our current Time Lord is reminded, “I’m the Doctor. And I save people.” Tidy. Crunchy. Perfect.

That’s mythology done right and done sparingly. And there’s little indication that this season of Doctor Who will feature any major mythological arcs at all. In fact, between a found-footage episode from popular Who writer Mark Gatiss and a “ludicrous” finale, which, rumor has it, features the Doctor all alone for the first time in the show’s history without companions or guest actor, the upcoming episodes seem downright experimental

Mythology, when not held in check, can drown a series. (Spoilers, sweeties.) River Song is Amy Pond’s daughter and also the Doctor’s wife who also killed him but later/earlier he “saved” her? Too much. I prefer author Neil Gaiman’sdescription of Doctor Who:

There’s a blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the
outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where
it’s meant to go. And when it turns up, there’s a bloke in it called
The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to
sort it out and he will probably succeed ’cause he’s awesome. Now sit
down, shut up, and watch “Blink.”

A Companion We Can Root For: Now that Clara is no longer a silly riddle to be solved nor, in the words of actress Jenna Coleman, a “control freak” who is constantly lying to both her boyfriend (R.I.P. Danny Pink) and the Doctor, she’s someone we can absolutely appreciate and root for. Charisma was never a problem for Coleman; it was the structure that failed her.

In the past, Who has found a lot of success in mining the personal lives of the Doctor’s companions. Rose’s Jackie and Mickey, Donna’s Wilf, and Amy’s Rory have all made wonderful bonus companions for the Doctor. (Sorry, Martha.) But that course never worked with Clara and, especially with last season’s school plot, derailed the Doctor from his adventures. Now Clara’s just a cool girl who rides around with the Doctor helping to save the day, bantering with Missy, and reminding the weary Time Lord why he fights. Do I wish for a more complicated and fully developed companion? I do and we’ll get there. Clara is exiting the TARDIS for good soon. But for now we can say that Clara is no longer a problem and her role this season, as retro as it may be, is to help the Doctor shine. So shine on, you crazy Time Lord. I’ll be watching.